


Try, Try, Try

by hawksonfire



Series: Marvel Bingo 2019 [5]
Category: Marvel
Genre: Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Has Issues, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Bucky Barnes-centric, Gay Bucky Barnes, Hardly Any Dialogue, Hurt Bucky Barnes, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Marvel Bingo 2019, POV Bucky Barnes, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes, mostly just Bucky's internal thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-27
Updated: 2019-05-27
Packaged: 2020-03-20 04:29:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18985297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hawksonfire/pseuds/hawksonfire
Summary: Bucky tries and tries and tries and fails at trying.





	Try, Try, Try

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Marvel Bingo Square I5 - Bucky Barnes/Clint Barton.
> 
>  
> 
> I wrote this at two am on a Sunday night because I saw [ this ](https://spacey-acey-artemis.tumblr.com/post/185169630469/whatisitlikeinyourfunny-archive-honestly-though) tumblr post and my brain would not shut up.

**Bucky**

Bucky tried. He tried so hard, all his life, to be normal. To say the right things, and act the right way, and like the right people. Before he woke up in the future, before Hydra turned him into their weapon, before he was drafted into the Army - he tried. He tried to force himself to feel the way he was supposed to feel; tried to make himself be attracted to soft curves and red lipstick and the seam of stockings running up a smooth leg.

He tried to forget about the rasp of stubble on his chin; tried to ignore the way his stomach twisted when he saw muscles rippling underneath suspenders. 

He went on three dates with Dolores (he called her Dot) and they went to the carnival and to dinner and they went dancing - and when she let him put his hand underneath her skirt after he drove her home, he tried to feel something,  _ anything _ . He made her eyes flutter closed and he made the prettiest sounds fall from her (too red, too soft) lips and he smiled at her and kissed her goodnight after she fell apart on his fingers and then he went home and tried not to picture his hands wrapped around someone, instead of inside someone.

He met Daniel when they were both working at the docks - Bucky to help pay for Steve’s new medicine, Daniel to help pay for his sister’s wedding - and he tried to not laugh at Daniel’s jokes and watch his throat bob when he swallowed and he tried not to be out of his mind with happiness when Daniel pulled him into an alley after their shift finished and kissed him until his mouth was red with stubble burn.

He went on two dates with Katherine (she called him Jimmy) and they went to the beach and for a drive and when she slipped her hand down his pants and twisted her wrist, he let his head fall back and tried not to think about the way Daniel’s hands had felt on his waist and his neck. Tried not to think about the way his thumb had slid over Bucky’s hipbone and the callus on the tip of it had caught on the fabric of his shirt and tugged, just slightly. Katherine used her hand and when he was done he smirked and said, “Thanks, doll. Let me return the favour?”  and then he put his mouth on her and made her fall apart with just his tongue and a hint of teeth, and he  _ desperately _ tried not to think about how he wished he could have someone in his mouth, and not have his mouth on someone.

He met Joe just after he was drafted on his first weekend away from Steve - they were bunkmates. He tried not to watch the way Joe’s lips blew out the smoke from his cigarette and he tried not to be too loud when Joe shoved his hand down Bucky’s pants and made him see stars and he tried not to hurl over the side of the truck they were in when a bullet flew through Joe’s head and his green eyes went blank and his blood splattered onto Bucky’s face.

He tried not to let his eyes travel over Stevie’s new shoulders and he tried not to let the way Steve’s outside now matched his inside make him smile more than he should and he tried to flirt with Agent Carter to make her see that Steve was head over heels for her - and he tried not to let his knees wobble with joy when she turned him down for Steve.

He tried not to notice the way Pinky and Gabe sometimes brushed hands when they thought no one was looking and he tried to make them understand that  _ he wasn’t like that _ when they cornered him one afternoon and accused him of being a “bigoted jackass” and “so what if we’re queer as corn, we ain’t botherin’ you” and he tried not to be desperately, hatefully jealous of the way they always seemed to gravitate towards each other no matter what was going on around them.

He tried to be relieved when they got a week of leave to “rest up and recuperate, men, we’ve got a long ordeal in front of us” and Colonel Phillips clapped him on the shoulder and gave him a little shove towards the bar in the small French town that the rest of the Commandos were already walking towards.

He tried to be suave and charming towards the women at the bar, smiling and flirting his way through the room. And he tried not to be too relieved when the woman he paid to come up to his room was okay with just holding him as he slept - and soothing him with a calm voice and a soft touch on his forehead when he woke up screaming.

And when Steve asked him if Bucky would follow him into hell, Bucky just grinned and drank his cheap whiskey and tried to not let his voice crack as he said, “Punk, I’d follow you into Hitler’s bedroom if you can get me a decent pack of smokes.” and it wasn’t a lie - he wouldn’t be following Steve into hell because he had been there for the last twelve years as he tried and tried and tried and failed at trying.

He tried to hold onto that metal bar on the side of the train and he tried to reach for Steve’s hand and he tried to not see the flashes of Daniel’s grin and Joe’s eyes and Pinky and Gabe’s hands, clasped together as he fell.

And then he shut off the part of his mind that tried and didn’t try to do or feel or say or be things and he let one word replace the thundering  _ try try try _ that had been his heartbeat for far too long -  _ survive. _

He tried to kill the blond man on the helicarrier. 

He tried to wean himself off of the drugs that Hydra had kept him on, curled into a miserable, shivering ball and he tried to hold back the screams that wanted to escape.

He watched as the people that had tortured and maimed and done unspeakable things to him fell off their thrones and hit the ground and he knew that they had never tried in their lives.

He watched as four, then eight, then twenty Hydra bases burned until there was nothing left but ash on the wind - and then he walked away and tried to start anew. 

He bought plums and he owned a soft red shirt and he tried to smile at least once every day because he heard someone say that smiling was good for people to do.

And then he tried to find a way to tell Steve that he wasn’t safe and Steve couldn’t be around him - but Steve just ignored him and dragged him back to New York and Bucky tried to be mad about it.

But then he saw the blond archer with a purple bandaid on his nose and a crooked grin, and he tried desperately to shove down the fragment of a memory of someone who kissed him until his mouth was red from stubble burn - because that memory  _ hurt _ and Bucky’d had enough of hurting.

And Bucky does some research - covertly, of course - and he finds that it’s  _ okay _ to like men now, and it’s  _ okay _ to like both or neither or either or all. But he doesn’t know who to talk to about this so he just holds it close to his heart because it’s precious and he doesn’t know these new people well enough to try talking about it with any of them.

He overhears the Widow talking to the archer and he tries to turn around and walk away, but what she says makes his heart stop and his blood freeze over and what the archer says in response is like a jolt of electricity straight to the brain - but Bucky doesn’t understand why this jolt feels different from the thousands of others he’s had over the years.

“Barnes is avoiding you,” the Widow says.

“If he were trying to avoid me, I wouldn’t see him,” the archer says.

“What are you going to try?” asks the Widow, and Bucky finds himself holding his breath to hear the archer’s answer.

“I’m going to try being his friend,” the archer says - and Bucky runs away and hides in Steve’s closet and only comes out when he can hear the worry in Steve’s voice when he’s talking to him through the door.

And slowly, the archer becomes Barton, and Barton becomes Clint - and Clint becomes everything. Bucky tries to show his appreciation but he doesn’t know how to do it because it doesn’t work like it used to. He can’t make double-edged comments and give sly glances, and he can’t buy flowers and call Clint ‘doll’. 

So he just smiles hesitantly at Clint and maybe touches him a little bit more, brushes Clint’s hip with his when he needs to get by him, letting his fingers linger on Clint’s shoulder after he pats him on the back - and one day Clint blinks slowly at him and says, “Have you been flirting with me this whole time?”

Bucky tries to tell Clint how he feels but his words come out all jumbled and broken and his eyes burn and he tries and tries to keep it all inside because that’s what he’s  _ supposed _ to do - and then Clint lays a gentle hand on his shoulder and says, “It’s okay, Bucky. You don’t need to try with me.”

And Bucky realizes that he’s right - Bucky  _ doesn’t _ have to try with Clint, not really. Clint’s not Daniel or Dot or Joe or Katherine, and Bucky doesn’t want him to be. He wants Clint to be  _ Clint _ , so he takes a deep breath and looks at Clint’s eyes (they’re nothing like Joe’s) and he looks at Clint’s lips (they’re nothing like Daniel’s) and he smiles softly and puts his hand on top of Clint’s.

Later, when they’re lying in Bucky’s bed and he’s tracing a pattern only he can see into Clint’s naked chest, he presses a kiss to Clint’s cheek and says, “Thank you.”

Clint doesn’t ask for what, he just keeps his eyes closed and grins and pulls Bucky just a little bit closer. 

And for the first time in nearly a hundred years, Bucky Barnes smiles at the man he loves and he stops trying.


End file.
